I'm crazy...I'll do it...don't try to stop me

[DParker]

I've got a 10.76 lb vacuum packed bone-in pork shoulder in the freezer that I've been wanting to smoke for a while. But finding a weekend with enough free time to babysit the smoker for 14 hours (or more) has been a challenge...and I keep forgetting to transfer it to the fridge for defrosting early in the week. So after doing a bit of reading I decided to get creative about it.

That's right...I'm gonna' sous vide Porky's butt. Not only that, I'm going to toss it into the bath straight from the freezer. Since it's already vac-packed I don't even need to do that. I got everything ready to go in the kitchen tonight, and just before I leave for work tomorrow morning I'll put the roast in the container, cover it in hot tap water and set the Anova to 165°F...and then leave it for 24-28 hours (depending on when the rain quits that's expected Saturday morning.) Then I'll cover it in rub and toss it into the smoker at 300°F for however long it takes to bring the internal temp to ~200°F, give or take.

I predict that this will either be a brilliant success or an unmitigated disaster...and nothing in between. My biggest concerns are that the meat won't hold together after that much time in the sous vide, or that there won't be enough time in the smoker to create any bark. But I'm hoping that the higher smoker temp will solve that problem.

[Triton Rich]

Good lord that sounds dangerous, be careful! I dunno, it actually sounds like a good plan to me. Then again, I'm from Illinois, I don't know a thing about smoked meat. Not to mention that I couldn't imagine a set of circumstances where I would have 4 hours to babysit a smoker, much less 14 I'll stand by and await the final report!

[DParker]

Good lord that sounds dangerous, be careful! :

Yet another example of my willingness to face great peril in the name if science.

[DParker]

So...the madness begins...

[Swamp Fox]

So is the sous vide doing the defrost and most of the cooking, and the smoker finishes it off?


I like your meat anchor.

That doesn't sound right, but there...I said it.

[crookedeye]

You do no this has never been attempted before..

[DParker]

So is the sous vide doing the defrost and most of the cooking, and the smoker finishes it off?

That's the plan, Stan.

I like your meat anchor.

Surprisingly, the shoulder didn't try to float..but it did keep getting pulled toward the cooker, so I jammed that mallet in there in order to keep the two apart.

That doesn't sound right, but there...I said it.

You do no this has never been attempted before..

As much as I'd like to take credit for the idea I actually go it from reading about other people cooking shoulders the same way...though finishing it in the smoker might be a bit of a twist (I think most/all other accounts I read involved either using the meat as-is when it came out of the bath, or finishing it on a grill or under a broiler.)

[Swamp Fox]

LOL...


165 represents the water temp, correct? And then some expert or chart tells you X pounds will be defrosted/partially cooked in Y amount of time?

Do you know what the meat temp will be when you take it out of the water? And then do you/how do you have some idea how much time at 300 will be necessary to hit an internal 200?

[DParker]

165 represents the water temp, correct?

Correct.

And then some expert or chart tells you X pounds will be defrosted/partially cooked in Y amount of time?

In this case I'm going based on a collection of anecdotes posted by quite a few other sous vide users who have experience with this cut of pork. It's pretty much unanimous that 24 hours or so at that temperature is sufficient to yield a tender and fully-cooked shoulder.

Do you know what the meat temp will be when you take it out of the water?

In theory, at that point the temperature throughout the meat should be a uniform 165ºF. One way or the other I'll know for sure because I'll be embedding one my my iGrill2's temperature probes in it.

And then do you/how do you have some idea how much time at 300 will be necessary to hit an internal 200?

At this point...I don't have a clue. It's one of the biggest bits of knowledge I hope to gain from this because I couldn't find information on it from others who had attempted the same thing. All I'm reasonably certain of is that it should take a LOT less than 14 hours (especially since 165ºF is a bit passed the point where shoulders typicall stall in a smoker), which is the whole point of this exercise. So the really important questions remaining are...

1. How much smoker time will be required?
2. Whatever the answer to #1 turns out to be, will that be enough time at 300ºF to dry the surface, create a bark AND give me good smoke infusion?

I think the pursuit of these questions is Discovery Channel worthy. Do you think they'll call?

[Swamp Fox]

Probably not unless you have some work done...